Opening Friday November 21 from 5-9 pm
Continuing November 22 & December 4, 5, 6 from 3-7 pm
Woody is a meditation on the persistence of the past in the present, with wood—both literal and symbolic—as its unifying element. Logs, stumps, beams, and forests carry stories of ambition and folly, serving as reminders of history’s weight. The paintings evoke the visual authority of historical realism, yet their unexpected interventions of color fracture the illusion, challenging viewers to see how history is told and twisted. Here, wood is not inert; it is freighted with memory and burden.
Figures from colonial and frontier life appear in precarious balance. Some literally carry logs on their heads, symbols of labor and the burden of consequences. In one major work, a 17th-century artist paints undisturbed in a barnyard while chaos rages beyond the fence—volcanoes, war, and plague unfolding in the distance. The juxtaposition between safety and chaos underscores the selective blindness with which history is recorded and retold. Other paintings twist art history into unsettling hybrids, such as a version of Frida Kahlo’s The Wounded Deer with the grinning head of a frontiersman—part absurd parody, part unsettling commentary on cultural appropriation and historical mythmaking.
These paintings suggest that the past is never simply behind us; it is reshaped, warped, or split in every generation. Woody asks us to see history not as something static, but as a restless force—rooted in wood and echoing across time.
